“And I don’t want you to be upset.”
“No, no, of course not.” Upset? She was about to get hysterical. Cissy had just hauled off and given Lenny a big slap, then spun around and walked away.
“Oh, hell and damnation!” Kaitlin muttered. “Barb, I’ll have to call you back.”
“Right! Just let me tell you who it is—”
Lenny, enraged, was back. “Cissy says she isn’t coming back. Mark is gone—he headed for New York. Cissy said he had no right to go. That she doesn’t give a damn about Mark or his aunt. She won’t work again in this town, not for me. I swear it, Kaitlin—if you’re going to work with her again, don’t call me.”
She vaguely heard Lenny, and she vaguely heard Barbara.
Vaguely. Just vaguely. Because her jaw had dropped and her ears were buzzing, and it seemed that the world was spinning.
There was a man coming toward her. A tall, dark-haired man in bathing trunks. A tall, beautifully bronzed man with wonderfully rugged features and startling green eyes with golden-fire specks.
Brendan.
She knew he had a home here. She knew he kept boats here. She’d read bits and pieces about him in the papers over the years. And she’d even seen him, in the Keys. Not so long ago. Not long enough ago.
But they hadn’t met face to face, not here, and she hadn’t imagined that they ever would. There were three million people in Dade and Broward counties.
But in the midst of all this, Brendan was coming toward her.
“Barbara, I really have to hang up now,” she said to the receiver.
“Wait!” Barbara shrieked. “I have to tell you. He wants to talk to you. He took a room at the hotel, and I’m sure he’s going to look you up today.”
“He? Barbara, what are you talking about?”
Closer. He was coming closer. And suddenly she didn’t feel a day over eighteen. If she had been standing, she would have fallen.
There was hair on his chest. Rich, dark hair. Very masculine. A gold St. Christopher’s medal dangled there, somehow adding to the appeal. He’d aged. Some. There was just a touch of silver at his temples.
“He?” she whispered sickly.
“Brendan, Kaitlin. Brendan is our best man. And he’s going to be Bill’s best man, too. Anyway, he wanted Bill and Donna to ask you first, but when Joe approached him, well, he said he had to talk to you himself. That you’re a relative and he’s just a good friend, and that he’s willing as long as you don’t feel there would be any problem. And, well, I wanted time to talk to you, but you know Brendan, he said he had to know for himself that it was okay—Kaitlin, are you there?”
She was there. But Netty was suddenly there, too, staring at Brendan and smiling. Actually smiling.
“Oh, Ms. O’Herlihy, he is perfect! Definitely perfect!”
“But that’s not Mark Ford!” Janis whispered anxiously.
“Kaitlin, are you there?” Barbara demanded.
By then Brendan was there, right there in front of her.
Smooth and muscled and sleek—and half naked. He seemed to dwarf everything else. And he was talking softly, his voice low and rich and resonant.
“Kaitlin, I’m sorry to interrupt you—excuse me, really—but I just wanted to see if we could meet later. Barbara promised that she would have explained things to you by now and—”
“Perfect!” Netty cried again, clapping her hands together. And then she put her arms on his shoulders and turned him to face her.
She actually put her hands on him—on Brendan!—and dragged him around.
Kaitlin saw his muscles tighten, saw his jaw go tense. He might have grown lots more hair on his chest, but it didn’t seem that his temper had changed a bit.
“Wait!” she shrieked, leaping to her feet. The phone fell to the tiled floor. She could vaguely hear Barbara’s voice, and she wished that Barbara was there at that moment, because she wanted to throttle her cousin into silence.
“Mrs. Green, this isn’t my model. There’s been quite a mix-up, I’m afraid—”
“Nonsense!” Netty insisted. “He’s perfect.”
Brendan’s temper seemed to have faded. He was confused, he was irritated, but he wasn’t going to do anything incredibly rude. “Perfect?” he inquired politely. “Well, thank you. But I don’t think that Ms. O’Herlihy would agree with you.”
“Oh, Kaitlin, come on! Seashell Sunblock is my product, and I think he’s perfect.”
“But he’s not a model!” Kaitlin insisted.
“No, he’s not,” Brendan agreed, and his voice was very firm. “Kaitlin, if you can manage a few minutes later, I’ll be down by the water.” He stared at Netty Green. “Excuse me, ma’am, it’s been a pleasure.”
“Oh, wait! Wait!” Netty cried. “If you’re not the model, just who are you?”
He paused, his back stiffening. Then he turned slowly, and the way his eyes fell on Kaitlin, she suddenly felt as if no time at all had passed since their last meeting.
As if dreams had never shattered between them.
Then his gaze was suddenly very cold and distant, and the smile he offered Netty was wry and amused. “I’m Mr. O’Herlihy. Brendan O’Herlihy, Miss…?”
“Green,” Netty said quickly. “Netty Green.”
“Yes, well, nice to have met you, Miss Green.” Then he turned again, and his muscles rippled in the sunlight as he started to walk away.
Janis, working on delayed reaction, gasped and leaped to her feet, staring after Brendan. It seemed as if her jaw was about to hit the floor. “That’s him? Your ex?” she breathed incredulously.
Kaitlin fell into her chair. She couldn’t answer.
She didn’t need to. Brendan paused and turned slowly. “Yes,” he said, his gaze sweeping over the table. “I’m him. Her ex.” His eyes landed on Kaitlin one last time and swept over her curiously; then he was walking away.
Yes, it was very definitely Brendan. But he wasn’t walking away, not really.
On the contrary, she thought, trembling. He had just walked back into her life.
Chapter 2
“That man is perfect!” Netty Green repeated obstinately.
Kaitlin, staring after Brendan’s retreating back, clenched her teeth tightly to keep from replying too quickly. She even managed to smile past the grid lock of her teeth. Then, after a few deep breaths, she managed to speak with an even tone and a surprising amount of polite control.
“Netty, I really am sorry, but I can’t make a man be a model who does not choose to be a model. And despite our very best efforts, I am afraid that I’m going to have to reschedule.”
Netty set her thin little lips and raised her chin. “Ms. O’Herlihy, I am not willing to reschedule. My time is valuable. I’m afraid I can give you only thirty minutes to solve this dilemma, and that is that.”
She turned, her narrow back ramrod straight, and disappeared into the hotel.
Kaitlin allowed her hand to crash straight down on the table, groaning. “Where did I go wrong? It was college, I know it. I should have gone to medical school. Gram always wanted someone in the family to be a doctor.”
“Kaitlin!” Janis said, her voice low but edged with a trace of excitement. “This is still salvageable.”
“Don’t mention salvage. It’s part of what he does for a living.”
“Your ex?”
“Don’t call him that.”
“Okay. Mr. O’Herlihy?”
Kaitlin nodded bleakly, her head still on the table.
“Well, that doesn’t matter,” Janis said. “Listen to me now! Pay attention. He came here to see you. He wants peace between you. He’s offering an olive branch—”
“If he’s offering it, it’s a barbed olive branch, believe me,” Kaitlin moaned, but she managed to sit up.
“Kaitlin, how bad can this be? You’ve been apart a long time now—”
“No, no, not so long.” All right, it was a long time. Eight years since they were divorced. But she had seen h
im less than four years ago, when she’d asked him if they couldn’t seek an annulment to appease both sets of very Catholic parents.
She hadn’t gotten an annulment. What she had gotten had been enough to make her very, very careful now.
“Kaitlin, you’ve got to ask him to model for this commercial.”
“No!”
“Kaitlin, what is your problem? He seems mature and pleasant, and he’s one of the most handsome, masculine men I’ve ever seen. He is perfect! A wonderful model—”
“He doesn’t want to be a model.”
“Tell him that it’s acting.”
“Janis, I can’t!” she insisted.
“You have to! We’re going to lose this account if you don’t.”
“We don’t have a female model anymore,” Kaitlin reminded her.
“We’ll get one. Just go get that man!”
“Janis, so we lose the account…”
“And then I don’t get paid!” Janis wailed. “Kaitlin, this is important. We could keep Seashell Products for years and years. Please!”
“Janis—”
“He wants something from you, right? So go out there and get something from him!”
“I need a drink,” Kaitlin muttered.
“It’s first thing in the morning!”
“Irish whiskey, neat.”
“Go get him, Kaitlin. Think of our reputation. Think of the business.”
“I’m thinking about my sanity,” Kaitlin said wearily. She sipped at her cold coffee. It was fine. Anything to wet her parched throat.
What had she done that was so evil that it seemed God was punishing her with a day like today?
If she found that Gram had included Brendan in her wedding, too, well, then, Kaitlin would probably just explode in shock and that would be that. All over.
“Kaitlin!” Janis wailed. “We’re running out of time.”
Kaitlin stood. Janis was right. Kaitlin needed to salvage something out of this situation. It was just that it was so dangerous to go near him. She should know. After what happened when she had seen him about the annulment…
Because things didn’t change. Things never changed between them. Emotions always roiled just beneath the surface. Anger, pain, even laughter, and that deep-lying thing had made it possible for time to erase anything between them.
But she was going to have to see him anyway. There was no way out of it. She couldn’t possibly tell her cousins she wouldn’t be involved in their weddings if Brendan were involved, too. She just couldn’t.
“Go get him, tiger!” Janis applauded.
“Janis!”
“Well…?”
Kaitlin inhaled and started walking down the beach. She passed Lenny’s cameraman with all his equipment and smiled, as if nothing in the world was wrong. “Are we still on, Ms. O’Herlihy?” he called to her.
“I—maybe,” she answered. She could see Brendan again. He was a little further down the beach, seated in the sand, his elbows on his knees, a blade of beach grass in his mouth as he stared out to sea. A trembling began deep within her abdomen. What had gone so wrong between them? Had it been because they looked at life with the eyes of youth, expectant, hopeful, believing in ideals?
And then life had been so cruel. Even so, when she had seen him several years ago they had still managed to laugh. Then the laughter had died away, and they had discovered that other things remained, the passion remained….
He turned, as if he had sensed her. She kept walking, despite the lump in her throat. Then the wind picked up, and suddenly her candy-striped skirt was swirling around her thighs.
She swore, pressing it down. He was wearing his sunglasses, but she saw the smile that curved his lips and she knew he was aware of her discomfort.
She held the skirt at her side and anchored her hat with her other hand before the wind could whip it away, too.
It got harder as she got closer, but she kept walking, and within moments, she was standing before him.
“Hi,” he said, and patted the sand. “Take a seat.”
She bit into her bottom lip, but sat beside him. For a moment she, too, stared out to sea.
“I take it that Barbara hadn’t told you anything?” he finally asked, turning to her.
She could feel his green gaze despite his dark glasses. She didn’t look at him. She wished that she hadn’t sat quite so close. He had showered recently and he smelled nicely of soap mingled with his own scent, and with the salty smell of the sea.
He was perfect.
His bare shoulders were bronzed, strong. He had gotten more attractive with age, she thought. His chest was so broad, so nicely muscled.
And so damn bare.
Even if she hadn’t know him before, she would have been tempted to touch. To explore that rich, dark flurry of hair that grew over the rippling muscles…
“Kaitlin?”
“Ah…yes, Barbara did talk to me. About five minutes ago. Right while you were walking up to the table,” she managed to say.
“No warning? I’m sorry.”
She shrugged. “Well, you know Barbara.”
“And Joe,” he agreed, and though he was looking out to sea once again, she could see his easy smile from the corner of her eye. “Can you believe that they’re finally getting married?” He chuckled softly.
“Yes, I can,” she said with a trace of indignation in her tone. She added, “I still believe in magic,” then regretted the words. They gave away so much.
He glanced at her and shrugged. “Yes, well, maybe it is out there,” he said softly. Then he went quickly to the point. “Do you mind?”
“That they’re getting married? Of course not. I think it’s wonderful.”
“No,” Brendan groaned. “I meant, do you mind that I’m going to be involved in these weddings, too? Because if it’s going to bother you at all, I’ll step aside.”
She lowered her head, staring at the sand. “It’s really none of my business. Bill has a right to his choice, and so does Joe. And if they both want you—”
“Kaitlin, I asked if you minded.”
“And I said—”
“Kaitlin?”
“Well, of course I mind!” she exploded, and she was instantly on her feet, in all of five minutes he’d managed to completely destroy her well-earned, customary control. “Of course I mind, but—”
“Kaitlin, I said that I—”
“No! No! You’re going to be Bill’s best man, and you’re going to be Joe’s best man. You just can’t have my blessing, that’s all. I don’t think I can be cheerful and smile every time I see you.”
“Then—”
“But I will see you. And we will get through it.”
He was smiling, she realized. And he was barely listening to her.
“Your skirt, Kaitlin. It’s better than Marilyn Monroe on that subway grating.”
She gasped and collected her flying skirt. Afterward she felt his hand on her wrist, pulling her down beside him. “Funny, isn’t it? I don’t have a right in the world where you’re concerned, Ms. O’Herlihy, but though I’m impressed as hell by that sexy red garter and those sleek stockings, I still can’t handle the thought of another man enjoying the show.”
“Brendan—”
“I won’t seduce you, Kaitlin.”
“Oh, God!” she whispered, mortified, trying to jerk her wrist from his grasp.
“The last time I saw you, I really couldn’t help it. You wanted something from me. You wanted to pretend that we had never been married. After you’d spent all these years using my name. And you still wanted the name! You wanted the annulment, too. And it seemed as if you were willing to pay anything to get what you wanted. I really couldn’t help myself.”
“Brendan, let go of my wrist!” she whispered, then swung on him when he didn’t let go. “Your ego is incredible. I couldn’t have been seduced—especially by you—if I hadn’t let it happen. So don’t assume that you can crook a finger and have me come running.�
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“I never assumed that, Kaitlin,” he said coldly. “There were times when I could have begged and it wouldn’t have brought you near me.”
She gasped, and suddenly her lips were trembling. She was so filled with emotion that she was shaking all over. “You left, Brendan O’Herlihy! You left me right after our wedding—or what sufficed for a wedding! And then you left the country. Even before that you left me. You left me when Sean died. You were gone even when you were standing right beside me.”
“For God’s sake, Kaitlin—”
“It still hurts, doesn’t it? It still hurts that Sean died. Well, what happened between us still hurts, too.”
She shut up suddenly, aware that her eyes were watering, aware that she had said things she had never intended to say. It was just that, when he was with her, time and distance disappeared. It had been the same when she had gone to see him before. When they had begun to talk. But she had been casual then. She had tried to pretend that time had taken away all the pain, all the longing. She had been mature and distant as she explained what she wanted and why it would be best for them both.
He had listened. Then he had moved closer, and she had felt all the same things that seeing him now was making her feel again. The urge to stroke his cheek, to run her fingers over his back, over his bronzed flesh. They’d been sipping wine, and he’d been listening so seriously to everything she’d had to say….
She couldn’t regret it. Not what had happened between them. But she had been furious about the morning after. About his blunt reminder that she’d been using his name all these years, and that they had been married, and that he would never say any different. And then he’d been quick to leave, inviting her to come back whenever she wanted to see him, just see him, without expecting anything else.
She hadn’t gone back. She’d felt like a fool. And now…
“Does it still hurt?” he asked her softly.
“Yes,” she replied honestly. “Not every day.” She smiled. “In fact, I pride myself on the fact that endless days can go by during which I don’t think about you once. But yes, it’s there, in a corner of my heart.”
“Is it?” he asked very quietly, but then she realized that he was looking beyond her shoulder and frowning. He smiled at her, arching a brow. “Your friend is hopping up and down and waving wildly. And tapping her wristwatch.”
Wedding Bell Blues Page 4
